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Econintersect: Support for OWS (Occupy Wall Street) is growing and the biggest impetus for grow is perhaps coming from the New York Police Department. The video documentation of apparent police transgressions keeps piling up. Some of these will be available later in this article. The initial GEI News report on OWS came on October 3. In that news brief, it was observed that the movement was getting little attention up to that point, but everything seemed to change on October 1 with the arrest of 700 marchers on the Brooklyn Bridge and the surfacing of videos showing apparently unprovoked police aggression.

Follow up:

Broader support of OWS seems to appear each week. A few leaders in the world of finance, investing and business have been expressing sympathy for the movement. However, there is something that will stop OWS, at least in its current form, and that is time. In New York, and many other parts of the country, not many will be spending time 24/7 living in the streets in December and on into the depths of winter.

Some of the “moguls” who have made statements include: Laurence Fink (Blackrock CEO), Jim Cramer (TheStreet.com) and George Soros (The New American and Reuters). Many “captains of finance and industry" have kept quiet. Also, so far there has been little recognition of the movement from national political leaders. One leader who tried to participate did not get the opportunity (see Atlanta video, below.)

The New American has reported on OWS as follows:

Labor unions, communists, “community organizers,” socialists, and anti-capitalist agitators have all joined together to “Occupy Wall Street” and protest against “greed,” corporations, and bankers. But despite efforts to portray the movement as “leaderless” or “grassroots,” it is becoming obvious that there is much more going on behind the scenes than meets the eye.

Billionaire financier George Soros’ fingerprints, for example, have been all over the anti-Wall Street campaign from the very beginning. And this week, the infamous hedge-fund boss publicly announced his sympathy for the protesters and their complaints about bailouts — despite the fact that he lobbied for even greater unconstitutional handouts to bankers in 2009.

“Actually I can understand their sentiment, frankly,” he told reporters while announcing a large donation to the United Nations. “I can sympathize with their grievances.”

But Soros’ support for the protesters goes far beyond his tepid public statements. In fact, the original call to “Occupy Wall Street” came from the magazine AdBusters, an “anti-consumerist” publication financed by, among other sources, the Soros-funded Tides Foundation.

Other Soros-backed outfits promoting big government — some with myriad ties to the Obama administration — are also publicly driving the occupation campaign. MoveOn.org, for instance, has received millions of dollars from the billionaire banker. And now, the group is urging its supporters to join the Occupy Wall Street movement as well.

“Over the last two weeks, an amazing wave of protest against Wall Street and the big banks has erupted across the country,” MoveOn said in a recent e-mail to supporters, praising the “brave” demonstrators. “On Wednesday, MoveOn members will join labor and community groups in New York City for a huge march down to the protest site — the biggest yet.”

On top of supplying activists to join the demonstrations, MoveOn is also staging what it calls a “massive ‘Virtual March on Wall Street’ online.” The Internet-based demonstrations are a collaborative effort with another radical and well-connected outfit tied to Soros called Rebuild the Dream.

Soros has denied providing any funding to OWS. Reuters has reported an indirect link through an organization named Adbusters which received money from Tides Center. From Reuters:

According to disclosure documents from 2007-2009, Soros' Open Society gave grants of $3.5 million to the Tides Center, a San Francisco-based group that acts almost like a clearing house for other donors, directing their contributions to liberal non-profit groups. Among others the Tides Center has partnered with are the Ford Foundation and the Gates Foundation.

Disclosure documents also show Tides, which declined comment, gave Adbusters grants of $185,000 from 2001-2010, including nearly $26,000 between 2007-2009.

Aides to Soros say any connection is tenuous and that Soros has never heard of Adbusters. Soros himself declined comment.

The Vancouver-based group, which publishes a magazine and runs such campaigns as "Digital Detox Week" and "Buy Nothing Day," says it wants to "change the way corporations wield power" and its goal is "to topple existing power structures."

Here are a few videos that show some of what is going on:

Brooklyn Bridge 10/1/2011

Police Control the Unruly

Crowd Control

Police Subduing Violence

GEI Video of the Day 10/9/2011

Occupy Los Angeles

Occupy Atlanta – Difficulty counting hands

GEI Video of the Day 10/14/2011

Protester Tells His Story

Celebration of Canceled Zuccotti Park cleaning 10/14/2011

A site claiming to represent the OWS movement is The 99 Percent. which has posted a declaration and a political process for the 2012 elections.

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